Welcome to Responding With Prayer,
An opportunity to respond to the complex everyday experiences that lift us up and bring us down.
My name is Jess.
I have struggled with attending to prayer and I hope this little offering brings you closer to the Creator.
Today's meditation is on re-engaging your faith.
So to start,
Let's take five big breaths.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress in situations.
It's good for slowing down,
Preparing for prayer,
But also a good practice for all kinds of situations we find ourselves in.
So for one minute,
Just feel your body as you breathe.
You That was literally 60 seconds.
If your mind went to other places just now or your mind goes to other places throughout this time,
That's okay.
It's natural and you're still here so let's move on.
Take a moment and identify one person or situation you are grateful for as you do this.
Take a moment and out loud or in your head,
Express that gratitude towards God.
Re-engaging our faith is a long process and often closer than it appears.
Our faith is still very much close to us even if we have been unintentional for a period of time.
A re-engaged faith is beautiful because it's often different than what our faith looked like before.
It is helpful to become intentional again while at the same time being open to what re-engaging your faith looks like and feels like anew.
Our bodies are an important part of prayer so if you're able,
Put out your arms and turn up your palms in a posture of release towards the Creator.
The Christian scriptures tell us a very practical spiritual opportunity.
Cast your cares towards the divine.
So imagine he wrote the things that have made you less intentional with your faith on the palms of your hands as an act of submission.
What words would be there?
God,
We place into your hands these things on our hands.
We give to you our faith and its impact on our life.
Now a lot of meditation teaches the necessary ability to release.
Let's also focus on what healthy things we put into that space of release.
If we're releasing the cares that have caused us to move away from faith,
Then what are we needing to take on?
As you close your hands,
What accompanying things do you need to take on as you re-engage your life of faith?
How about honesty with God?
Faith that isn't done with you.
Hope for life that you want.
And trust in a God that never leaves us.
Engaging our faith will most always connect us to our purpose because it focuses us on what God would have us contribute to the world.
So in prayer we slow down and we make commitments to our core foundations.
Spend a moment expressing to God how re-engaging your faith can impact your life and what freedoms you want to live into.
You you God we accept the freedom that comes in submission to you we often fight against the very abundant life that you have for us so we accept the grace of being loved no matter what our faith feels like we accept the grace of second third eighth 18th and 340 second chances that you give us as we come back to our feet most of all we accept the love of God just as we are now taking this time today is only the first step in re-engaging faith and hopefully has changed your orientation towards re-engaging God you may need to take some greater steps to address new patterns of faith in your life the great spiritual writers in the Christian tradition often maintained that prayers greatest gift is not that it suddenly changes our situations but that it often changes us you you you you you you
